Programme Cover for Mountjoy Theatre Project’s Production of “Flight to Grosse Ile” (1999)

by irishcanadianfamineresearcher

In the Mountjoy Theatre Project production of Jim Minogue’s play “Flight to Grosse Ile” (1999), the character of Father Cazeau, a French-Canadian “priest of the Irish” who cared for Famine orphans in the quarantine station in 1847, was played by Tola Mohmoh, an imprisoned immigrant in Ireland. On stage, he declared: “There is no Irish blood in my veins, but there is pity in [my heart] for Irish suffering”. In the programme booklet for the production, Tola Mohmoh himself wrote about how he could empathize with “the plight of the Irish in those hard times”. In his own words: “Being of ethnic origin, and knowing my roots, I can relate to the ‘plight of the Irish”.